Mussolini is not generally thought to have been a figure of the American left.

First off, he’s Italian.

Also, he’s a man of the right.

And I’m open to the view that I’m just ignorant, but what on Earth is the “politics of meaning?” I don’t think it’s a phrase that’s on everyone’s lips.

So the new subtitle is half absurd and half obscure. Presumably it’s all wrong, but maybe there’s a whole lot behind the “politics of meaning” phrase.

What’s the over/under on how many more times it changes before being released?

By the way, the rollout date for my book, “Conservative Poopypants: Why Everyone I Disagree With Is a Hitler-Loving Poopypants,” has been pushed back to November 5, 2008. It’s a very serious, very thoughtful argument that has never been made with such detail or such care. Preorder it now!

Yes, there is that small problem. I had noticed the contradiction between “the American left” and Mussolini, but I didn’t want to dwell on it. Mussolini’s ideological alignment is a bit more debtable, in that he was originally a socialist and Italian fascism retained some aspects of a socialist program. To the extent that fascists believed that they represented a “third way,” the left/right labeling is misleading, and fascist governments were somewhat opportunistic in what they used from the different sides’ playbooks, so to speak. Opponents of Roosevelt argued that his policies resembled those of Mussolini, but that is a very different question and obviously doesn’t show any direct ties between fascism and American liberalism in the ’30s.

Goldberg loves talking about the “politics of meaning.” He believes that this is a put-down. He usually misunderstands the politics of people to whom he attributes this label. (If you pay attention to where your food came from, or how it is grown, for anything resembling ethical or political reasons, you might be practicing the “politics of meaning.”) What he means by it is the politics of people who derive meaning from politics and who invest everyday things with political significance. This was one of his main charges against the “crunchy cons,” reminding us once again that he didn’t understand what they were talking about or where they were coming from. Of course, this puts him in opposition not just to greens who buy organic and so forth, but to a long line of conservatives who believed that political life concerned the cultivation of virtue and the proper ordering of both soul and commonwealth.

There’s not that much time left before the release. I would guess that there won’t be more than one more subtitle change.

I think it’s fair to say that Mussolini was a man of the right, based on his alliances within Italian politics and the context of European politics at the time. I also think it’s fair to say that Stalin was a man of the left, on the same rationale.

That said, you are of course right that these divisions in mid-twentieth-century European politics carry no relevance for American politics today. Harry Reid does not want to set up gulags and drive Americans into starvation; Mike Huckabee doesn’t want to install himself as the head of a totalitarian state (though the jury’s still out on Rudy).

What a strange rhetorical tic from Goldberg, the dismissive attitude you describe towards “the politics of meaning.” Someone should let him know that ideas have consequences.

But he evaluates ideas pretty much solely on the basis of their political correctness. He says today that he supported the invasion of Iraq in large measure because he thought the people who opposed it were dirty hippies. Why take the time to evaluate an argument, if the party line is clear?

I don’t know as much about the Italian case, but the German political left was very firmly against Hitler and the rise of the Nazis. The Social Democrats were the only party to vote against the Enabling Act; the Communists were banned by then.

In the not-too-distant past I’ve probably taken them far more seriously than I should have, but some libertarians and conservatives love playing the game “Liberals support policies X, Y, and Z; the Nazis and/or Stalinists also supported these policies; therefore the Nazis and/or Stalinists are really the intellectual kin of modern liberals!” Of course one can play that game a million different ways, and as Daniel said it doesn’t prove anything.

Daniel, have you read Matthew Scully’s book “Dominion”? He made the cover of TAC around the time it came out, so I’m sure you’re at least familiar with the thesis.

That would make some sense. Gathering quotes of people during the ’20s and ’30s who said supportive things about Mussolini would reveal a pretty politically diverse batch, I suspect, since you’d also have Evelyn Waugh, Winston Churchill and Ezra Pound. That part would be the “secret history of the British right,” I suppose, except that it isn’t secret. Thanks for the comment.